Kalona, Ia. — Suzanne Yoder’s first-grade class at Kalona Elementary is learning all the basics this year: English, math, social studies and ... Arabic?
While it may surprise some who haven’t mastered even one language, let alone the typical languages taught in school such as Spanish, French or German, Yoder’s students don’t seem to be having problems with the Arabic they’ve started to learn.
“This is easy,” Cary Schaefer, a first grader, said as he wrote his name in Arabic on the blackboard. Cary and his classmates are in one of the classes of kindergarten through fifth-grade students who have started to receive lessons in the language this past month.
While studies show the benefits of learning a second language at a young age, why Arabic?
Because of the Middle East, increasingly important in world affairs and where Arabic predominantly is spoken, said Susie Swartzendruber, Kalona Elementary’s Arabic program coordinator.
“I just feel like this is our way to help our students start looking at that part of the world in a different way,” Swartzendruber said. “I think this is a great way to build understanding.”
The program is available to the school thanks to a three-year, $200,811 federal grant that funds foreign language programs the Bush administration deems important to national security. Swartzendruber, who speaks Arabic as a second language, said she applied for the grant because of her interest in that part of the world and because of its importance in world affairs.
Swartzendruber lived and worked in Egypt for three years. She tapped Zahra Al-Attar, a Baghdad native, to lead the program. Al-Attar said the program already is a big success with the students.
“They’re having a lot of fun learning so far,” Al-Attar, 38, said.
In fact, the program has become a hit throughout the school, both with students and faculty. Students and teachers have name tags in Arabic. Meanwhile, Yoder’s class has made a video Arabic dictionary to send to soldiers in Iraq. Also, a fourth-grade teacher is working with her students to make a podcast tutorial of basic Arabic words.
